The present invention relates to displays of tissue motion. In particular, motion associated with organs or other tissues within a body is displayed for diagnostic use by a sonographer or other medical personnel.
The health of a heart may be diagnosed, at least in part, by assessing motion of the myocardial wall. For example, a series of two-or three-dimensional images showing motion of the myocardial wall is viewed. A medical practitioner makes a judgment about the health of the myocardial wall by mental comparison to motion associated with known defects or healthy wall motion. The medical practitioner may compare the sequence of images to an adjacent sequence of images showing either a healthy or unhealthy heart.
Wall motion is shown using one of various ultrasound modes. B-mode, Doppler mode, or both B-mode and Doppler mode imaging may be used for diagnosing myocardial wall motion. Other imaging modes or detection techniques provide additional information for diagnosis. For example, an amount of displacement or a ratio of displacements at two different times associated with a particular wall location may be determined and displayed. As another example, inward systole or outward diastole motion may be separately color-coded for more accurate identification of the two phases. Different colors are used for tissue in different positions. As yet another example, an amount of perfusion of contrast agent within the myocardial wall may be color-coded or otherwise displayed with an image to indicate the health of the heart, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,015,384, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.